I don't believe perfectly efficient markets exist either and I'm aware of phenomenons like forced arbitration, negative externalities, and consumers voting against their own interests. But you can't start from "the market is imperfect" and then jump to the conclusion that the smartphone market is broken to the point that it requires government intervention. Honestly, it's a little difficult to discuss this when you just vaguely dismiss everything as "you're misunderstanding the history of all the cases you cite". Elaborating on even one example keeps this grounded, although I understand if you don't think it's worth the effort.
I'll take a crack though: the inefficiency/externalities currently present in the smartphone market are well within the capabilities of the market to correct itself. When I say that consumers are getting what they want, I don't mean "the market is literally perfect and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it". Antitrust & government intervention isn't warranted on every market imperfection and risks distorting the efficiency of the market even further because government action is rarely restrained or nuanced. The tech industry traditionally has relatively little intervention and it is littered with similar examples where market obstructions like lock-in or DRM are eventually accounted & corrected for. Yes, there was that big breakup of Ma Bell which held a unique 100-year monopoly, but I don't think any Big Tech is quite comparable to Ma Bell.
And frankly, consumers voting against their interests is a slippery accusation that should require a high burden of proof. Corporate deception can cause this, but beyond that it's your word against the consumer's. I'm not inclined to believe suggestions that consumers would care about X if only they were better informed. Prove it in the market, one could pass a small law that improves labelling or something and see if consumer behavior changes.
> And again, this is not really a valid way to think about market data. Anyway, it doesn't matter because according to your worldview the only thing that matters is what consumers choose, and consumers have clearly overwhelmingly chosen that they want the cheaper phones instead of the flagships.
A little more detail than "you're wrong" would be appreciated. Yes, consumers have overwhelmingly chosen cheaper phones over flagships, but there are multiple groups of consumers with different choices, not all of them are price sensitive. One thing most groups of consumers have in common though is that they don't care much for openness. This is reflected in low legitimate usage of Android's open features, steady bleed from open desktop platforms, and negligible interest in open mobile platforms (including Android-compatible forks).
> The security of the phone is irrelevant, and it doesn't make sense to look at their purchasing decisions as some kind of validation of Apple's security model because they don't care, it is not a factor in their purchasing decisions.
The security of the phone is not irrelevant, I don't know why you think that. There does probably exist a group of consumers for whom the green bubble is the only thing that matters, but that's not everyone or likely even a majority.
If Apple allowed sideloading tomorrow, their purchasing decisions wouldn't change because there is no non-sideloading alternative. Apple is basically the only brand that has such a tightly controlled walled garden. That doesn't mean they don't want it, and forcing Apple to support sideloading takes away a consumer's right to choose to enter a walled garden like that.
> I don't need to be a plumbing expert to know not to take apart my toilet. Nobody needs to be a security expert to know not to flip a switch or mess with default security settings. It's not a complicated system, when I don't know how something works, I just don't mess with it. I'm not going to let you walk away from the fact that you're saying customers are perfectly informed about the tradeoffs of buying into an ecosystem, but too stupid to be taught not to press a single, clearly market button buried in a phone's settings. That is a contradiction.
It's simply wrong to imply that you have to be stupid in order to ignorantly flip off a security switch. The implications of flipping off a security setting is not obvious to laymen and malicious sites will attempt to provide a plausible explanation for why the switch is okay to turn off, an explanation that you need some technical knowledge to debunk. Fortunately, there aren't many motivated liars that are trying to convince you to take plumbing into your own unskilled hands.
Some platforms end up hiding these options deeper & deeper but it's a Sisyphean strategy. Apple has simply taken the option away entirely it which is the least open but most reliable solution.
Teaching them security is also not only incredibly expensive & difficult but also something most normal people don't really want to learn. Shoving elaborate dialogs and explanations in front of them is an effective way to annoy your users (assuming users don't just skip straight past them), or even worse: a skim read that gives your users a false sense of mastery.
> Then why is it a security risk to give them the option? You're arguing that iOS is more secure because it doesn't offer people the option to do something that you don't think they would do.
The majority of Android users not sideloading doesn't mean that it's not a significant security risk, I don't follow this line of reasoning. A majority of users never get seriously breached, even on insecure platforms like Windows, the remaining group of people that did is still quite significant, certainly enough for it to be a serious problem. It would be an unmitigated disaster if a majority of users were at high risk of breaches. An example I remember: it didn't take that many Fortnite players to sideload & spread malware for people to take notice.